I know this was recorded before Nebraska won @IU, but I was still a little surprised at how confident Dylan and Brendan seemed that MSU would be able to win at Nebraska. They talked about the home environment, but I still think they undersold it. Nebraska is also pretty good at forcing TOs, an MSU weakness, and their switch everything defense could give MSU problems. That’s what I would do against MSU, stay home on shooters, make Winston beat guys one on one.
Also, the fact that teams in conference are shooting 25% on 3s against MSU might show good defense, but it’s probably also a little luck (and the fact that they played PSU). MSU is actually 12th in defensive 3pt rate in conference. MSU could obviously win in Lincoln, but it’d be impressive and I wouldn’t chalk it up as a probable outcome.
Nebraska’s inability to defensive rebound would be my biggest worry about them having a chance in that one. Didn’t mean to imply that they had no chance either, game is in Lincoln. Just think being terrible on the defensive glass is a bad problem to have vs. MSU.
Yeah, it’s a weird game since Nebraska has a lot of things they can bring to the table against MSU (switch screens to force isos, spread pick and roll to attack MSU’s slow-footed bigs), but they are probably gonna give up a 50 ORB%. It’s crazy how no one on Nebraska is an adequate rebounder.
Yeah, defensive rebounding will probably be a problem for Nebraska, but Nebraska does some other good things to at least potentially get some things out of the match-up. Maybe I misinterpreted the pod, it just seemed like a Nebraska win was seen as being a fair amount more unlikely than the toss-up kenpom and barttorvik think it is.
It is also a huge spot for Nebraska. After this game, Huskers have @Rutgers, OSU, Wisconsin, @Illinois, Maryland.
Could play themselves back into the picture in the top half of the league.
I think most would agree that UM and MSU are the class of the Big Ten no matter how you want to look at it. But, power ranking the other teams is difficult due to scheduling. UM’s six wins have come against teams with a combined won-loss record of 7-21 in league play. Take away those teams losses to UM/MSU and they would be 7-12. MSU is undefeated against teams that are 10-23, take away loses to the top two and it is 10-14. Eight of UM/MSU 12 games were against the bottom 5 teams (which may be one of the reasons those teams are at the bottom). Meanwhile, Purdue is 3-2 with their only loses coming against UM/MSU. Maryland, on the other hand, is 6-1 with 4 home games and no games against the two best teams in the league. I think it is going to take a couple more weeks to find out just who the best of the rest really is.
Maryland won at Minnesota and lost by a possession at Purdue. That is a strong data point. I agree that a couple other teams might catch them…
Nebraska looks like a team that’ll make a run coming up here.
I think Maryland is a good team and will likely get even better as their young guys gain more experience. I’m just saying that if you switch out two opponents from these three teams schedule, it wouldn’t be hard to see Purdue sitting at 5-0, Maryland at 4-3 and Northwestern at 3-3. Might our opinions of those 3 teams be slightly different in that case?
I love the Podcast and the intro theme music. Terrific job.
My worry with this team is some of the bad habits of Charles Matthews. He has a habit of picking up the early foul inside of the first 2 minutes. Also, he still has pivot foot issues, and seems to turn the ball over about 4 times per game.
If he starts games very well, Michigan is very hard to stop with the remainder of balance the team has. He gets his 13ppg still, but a lot of his points seem to come in the latter second half in many games once the outcome is almost affirmed.
There is so much value that he provides, where playing 32 mpg or even more in big games is a must. He needs to get better with concentration.
So when doing the power rankings it makes sense to follow Dylan’s advice: pay attention to road wins and home losses. At this point the non-punching-bag teams have 6 home losses - who won those games?
Wisconsin won at Iowa
Minnesota won at Wisconsin
Maryland won at Minnesota
Michigan State won at Ohio State
Purdue won at Wisconsin
Nebraska won at Indiana
So if we rank the middle of the conference accordingly, we get four buckets:
1-0 Maryland, Purdue, Nebraska
1-1 Minnesota
1-2 Wisconsin
0-1 Iowa, Indiana, Ohio State
Is 1-2 better than 0-1 in this context? Maybe not. And ranking within the buckets is not obvious. Maybe it’s time to invest in a dartboard…
Anybody remember what the group think preseason rankings were? Seems like MSU #1 and UM #4 or 5. Don’t recall any others.
Some moron voted Indiana first 
I did expect Jerome Hunter to play, to be fair to myself.
MSU and UM were first by a pretty significant margin.
Thanks. That was fast.
Glad I don’t have to totally rely on just my memory.
I was going to say something about someone picking Indiana, but decided otherwise.
I feel justified when the guy I figured would be the No. 3 scorer misses the season though. I was really high on Hunter and that is a big loss.
Would Hunter replace Smith in their lineup or would they probably move Langford to SG and play Hunter at the 3? Not sure what kind of player he is exactly.
He’s sort of a jumbo wing, probably could have played time at either wing spot I’d say. Really they just desperately need another guy who can play other than Langford and Morgan.
It was a big loss forsure, but I don’t think a healthy Jerome Hunter would be enough to make them Big Ten title contender-worthy when Michigan is playing so well. I don’t think Hunter, Smith, Langford would be as good a trio on the wing as Iggy, Matthews, Poole regardless. They certainly aren’t as solid at point guard as Simpson. And they don’t have anyone off the bench close to the quality of Livers
Yeah, well I will admit that I didn’t think Michigan would be this good before the year. Just explaining my logic behind the preseason pick.
He was jokingly exaggerating a bit, but I really don’t see why Brendan thought the pick of @ Wiscy as our first loss was so weird.